The Revolutionary-Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry[2]

Published:Vperyod. No. 14, April 12 (March 30), 1905.

      Published according to the text inVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages293-303.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thequestion of the participation of Social-Democracy in the provisional
revolutionary government has been high-lighted less by the course of events than
by the theoretical reasonings of Social-Democrats of a certain trend. We dealt
in two articles (issues Nos. 13 and 14) with the arguments of Martynov, who was
the first to bring up this question. It appears, however, that the interest in
the question is so keen and the misconceptions to which the afore-mentioned
arguments have given rise (see in particularIskra, No. 93) are so
great that it is necessary to go into this matter once more. However
Social-Democrats may assess the probability of our having to give more than a
theoretical answer to this question in the near future, the Party at any rate
must be clear as to its immediate aims. Unless there is clarity in this matter
there can no longer be any consistent propaganda and agitation free from
vacillations and mental reservations.

Letus try to reconstruct the essence of the controversial question.If what we
want is not only concessions from the autocracy but its actual overthrow, we
must work to replace the tsarist government by a provisional revolutionary
government, which would, on the one hand, convene a Constituent Assembly on the
basis of really universal, direct, and equal suffrage by secret ballot, and, on
the other, be in a position to ensure real and complete freedom during the
elections. Thus, the question arises whether it is right for the
Social-Democratic Labour Party to participate in such a provisional
revolutionary government. This question was first raised by spokesmen of the
opportunist wing ofour Party, specifically by Martynov, prior to the Ninth of January, when he, and
      with himIskra, answered it in the negative. Martynov sought to
    carry the conceptions of the revolutionary Social-Democrats to an absurdity;
    hefrightenedthem by saying that in the event of a successful out
    come to our work of organising the revolution, with our Party’s assumption
    of leadership of the popular armed uprising, we wouldhave toparticipate in the provisional revolutionary government. This participation
    would mean inadmissible “seizure of power”, it would be
    “crass Jaurèsism”, which no class-conscious Social-Democratic
    Party could tolerate.

Letus dwell on the contentions of those who hold to such a point of view. By
participating in the provisional government, we are told, Social-Democracy
would have the power in its hands; but as the party of the proletariat,
Social-Democracy cannot hold the power without attempting to put our maximum
programme into effect, i.e., without attempting to bring about the socialist
revolution. In such an undertaking it would, at the present time, inevitably
come to grief, discredit itself, and play into the hands of the
reactionaries. Hence, participation by Social-Democrats in a provisional
revolutionary government is inadmissible.

Thisargument is based on a misconception; it confounds the democratic
revolution with the socialist revolution, the struggle for the republic
(including our entire minimum programme) with the struggle for socialism. If
Social-Democracy sought to make the socialist revolution its immediate aim, it
would assuredly discredit itself. It is precisely such vague and hazy ideas of
our “Socialists—Revolutionaries” that Social-Democracy has always
combated. For this reason Social-Democracy has constantly stressed the
bourgeois nature of the impending revolution in Russia and insisted on a clear
line of demarcation between the democratic minimum programme and the socialist
maximum programme. Some Social-Democrats, who are inclined to yield to
spontaneity, might forget all this in time of revolution, but not the Party as a
whole. The adherents of this erroneous view make an idol of spontaneity in their
belief that the march of events will compel the Social-Democratic Party in such
a position to set about achieving the socialist revolution, despite itself. Were
this so, our programme would be incorrect, it wouldnot be in keeping with the “march of events”, which is exactly what
      the spontaneity worshippers fear; they fear for the correctness of our
      programme. But this fear (a psychological explanation of which we
      attempted to give in our articles) is entirely baseless. Our programme is
      correct. And the march of events will assuredly confirm this more and more
      fully as time goes on. It is the march of events that will
      “impose” upon us the imperative necessity of waging a furious
      struggle for the republic and, in practice, guide our forces, the forces
      of the politically active proletariat, in this direction. It is the march
      of events that will, in the democratic revolution, inevitably impose upon
      us such a host of allies from among the petty bourgeoisie and the
      peasantry, whose real needs will demand the implementation of our minimum
      programme, that any concern over too rapid a transition to the maximum
      programme is simply absurd.

Onthe other hand, however, these very allies from among the petty-bourgeois
democrats create in the minds of Social-Democrats of a certain trend new
misgivings, namely, fear of “crass Jaurèsism”. Participation in a
government with the bourgeois democrats has been banned by a resolution of the
Amsterdam Congress[3];

 it is Jaurèsism, i.e., unconscious betrayal of the
interests of the proletariat, the reduction of the proletariat to a hanger-on of
the bourgeoisie, its corruption with the illusion of power, which in reality is
completely unattainable in bourgeois society.

Thatreasoning is no less fallacious. It shows that those who resort to it have
memorised good resolutions without understanding their meaning; they have
learned a few anti-Jaurèsist catchwords by rote, but have not
duly weighed them
and thus misapply them; they have learned the letter but not the spirit of the
recent lessons of international revolutionary Social-Democracy. To judge
Jaurèsism from the point of view of dialectical materialism one must draw a
clear line between subjective motives and objective historical
conditions. Subjectively, Jaurès wanted to save the republic by
entering into an
alliance with the bourgeois democrats. The objective conditions of this
“experiment” were that the republic in France had become an
established fact and was in no grave danger; that the working class had every
opportunity of developing an independent classpolitical organisation but did not take full advantage of this opportunity,
      partly because it was influenced by the parliamentary humbug of its
      leaders; that in actual practice, history was already objectively posing
      before the working class the tasks of the socialist revolution,from
      whichthe Millerands wereluringthe proletariat with
    promises of paltry social reforms.

Nowto take Russia. Subjectively, revolutionary Social-Democrats like theVperyod-ists or Parvus want to secure the republic by entering into an
alliance with the revolutionary bourgeois democrats. The objective conditions
differ from those in France as night differs from day. Objectively, the
historical course of events has now posed before the Russian proletariat
precisely the task of carrying through the democratic bourgeois revolution (the
whole content of which, for brevity’s sake, we sum up in the word Republic);
this task

con frontsthe people as a whole, viz., the entire mass of the petty
bourgeoisie and the peasantry; without such a revolution the more or less
extensive development of an independent class organisation for the socialist
revolution is unthinkable.

Tryto visualise concretely this complete difference in the objective conditions
and then tell us: what is one to think of people who, carried away by the
similitude of certain words, by the resemblance between certain letters, and by
the sameness of subjective motives, forget this difference?

Becausein France Jaurès paid homage to bourgeois social reform
on the mistaken
subjective plea of defending the re public, we Russian Social-Democrats are to
abandon all serious struggle to win the republic! This exactly is what the
profound wisdom of the new-Iskrists amounts to.

Indeed,is it not clear that as far as the proletariat is concerned the
struggle for the republic is inconceivable without an alliance with the
petty-bourgeois masses? Is it not clear that without the revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry there is not a shadow of hope
for the success of this struggle? One of the chief flaws in the argument under
discussion is its deadness, its stereotyped character, its failure to make
allowance for the revolutionary situation. Struggling for the republic while at
the same time renouncing the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship is as though
Oyama had decided to fight Kuropatkin at Mukden, butdisavowed beforehand any intention of taking the city. If we, the revolutionary
people, viz., the proletariat and the peasantry, want to “fight
together” against the autocracy, we must fight against it together to the
last, finish it off together, and stand together in repelling the inevitable
attempts to restore it! (It should be said again, to avoid possible
misunderstanding, that by the republic we understand not only and not
so much a form
of government as the sum-total of democratic changes envisaged in our minimum
programme.) One must have a schoolboy’s conception of history to imagine the
thing without “leaps”, to see it as something in the shape of a
straight line moving slowly and steadily upwards: first, it will be the turn of
the liberal big bourgeoisie—minor concessions from the autocracy; then of
the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie—the democratic republic; and finally
of the proletariat— the socialist revolution. That picture, by and large,
is correct,

correct dlalongue, as the French say—spread over a
century or so (in France, for instance, from 1789 to 1905); but one must be a
virtuoso of philistinism to take this as a pattern for one’s plan of action in a
revolutionary epoch. If the Russian autocracy, even at this stage, fails to find
a way out by buying itself off with a meagre constitution, if it is not only
shaken but actuallyoverthrown, then, obviously, a tremendous exertion
of revolutionary energy on the part of all progressive classes will be called
for to defend this gain. This “defence”, however, is nothing else
than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry! The
more we gain now and the more vigorously we defend the gains, the less will the
inevitable future reaction be able to reappropriate afterwards, the shorter
will the intervals of reaction be, and the easier will the task be for the
proletarian fighters who will come after us.

Buthere come those who, yardstick in hand, dlaIlovaisky,[1]would
measure off in advance, before the struggle has begun, a modest little bit of
our future conquests—people who, before the downfall of the autocracy,
even before the events of the Ninth of January, took it into their heads to
intimidate the working class of Russia with the bogy ofa terrible revolutionary-democratic dictatorship! And these knights of the
      yardstick lay claim to the name of revolutionary Social-Democrats....

Participationin the provisional government with the bourgeois revolutionary
democrats, they weep, means sanctioning the bourgeois order; it means
sanctioning the perpetuation of prisons and the police, of unemployment and
poverty, of private property and prostitution. This is an argument worthy either
of anarchists or of Narodniks. Social-Democrats do not hold back from struggle
for political freedom on the grounds that it is bourgeois political
freedom. Social-Democrats regard this “sanctioning” of the
bourgeois order from
the historical point of view. When Feuerbach was asked whether he sanctioned the
materialism of Büchner, Vogt, and Moleschott, he said: Backwards I fully agree
with the materialists; but not forwards. That is precisely how Social-Democrats
sanction the bourgeois system. They have never been afraid of saying, and never
will be, that they sanction the republican-democratic bourgeois order
in preference to an autocratic serf-owning bourgeois order. But they
“sanction” the bourgeois republic only because it is the last form
of class rule, because it offers a most convenient arena for the struggle of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie; they sanction it, not for its prisons and
police, its private property and prostitution,

hut forthe scope and freedom it
allows to combat these charming institutions.

Farbe it from us to contend that our participation in the revolutionary
provisional government entails no dangers for Social-Democracy. There is not,
nor can there be, any form of struggle, any political situation that
does not involve dangers. If there is no revolutionary class instinct,
if there is no
integral world outlook on a scientific level, if (with due apologies to our
friends of the newIskra) there are no brains in the head, then it is
dangerous even to take part in strikes—it may lead to Economism; to engage
in parliamentary struggle—it may end in parliamentary
cretinism[4];

to support the Zemstvo liberal democrats—it may lead to a “plan for
a Zemstvo campaign”. It would then be dangerous even to read the
extremely useful writings of Jaurès and Aulard on the French
Revolution—it
may lead to Martynov’s pamphlet on two dictatorships.

Itgoes without saying that if the Social-Democrats were to forget, even for a
moment the class distinctiveness of the proletariat vis-à-vis the petty
bourgeoisie, if they were to form an ill-timed and unprofitable alliance with
one or another untrustworthy petty-bourgeois party of the intelligentsia, if
the Social-Democrats were to lose sight, even for a moment, of their own
independent aims and the need (in all political situations and exigencies, in
all political crises and upheavals) for attaching paramount importance to developing the class-consciousness of the proletariat and its in dependent political
organisation, then participation in the provisional revolutionary government
would be extremely dangerous. But under such circumstances, any political step,
we repeat, would be equally dangerous. The groundlessness of these possible
apprehensions as applied to the present formulation of the immediate tasks of
the revolutionary Social-Democrats is borne out by a few simple statements of
fact. We shall not speak about ourselves or quote the numerous declarations,
warnings, and counsels on this question given inVperyod;we shall,
instead, cite Parvus. He sub scribes to the opinion that the Social-Democrats
should participate in the provisional revolutionary government, and he is
emphatic on the conditions, which we must never forget, namely, to strike
together, but to march separately, not to merge organisations, to watch our ally
as we would our enemy, etc. We shall not dwell in detail on this aspect of the
question, having dealt with it in our previous article.

No,the real political danger to Social-Democracy today does not lie where the
new-Iskrists are looking for it. It is not the thought of the
revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry that
should fright en us, but rather the spirit of tail-ism and torpidity which has
such a demoralising effect on the party of the proletariat and finds expression
in all kinds of organisation-as-process, arming-as-process theories, and what
not. To take, for in stance,Iskra’slatest attempt to set up a
distinction between the provisional revolutionary government and the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. Is this
not an example of lifeless scholasticism? People who invent such distinctions
are capable of stringing together fine words but are absolutely incapable of
thinking.Actually, these concepts stand to each other roughly in the relation of legal
      form to class content. To speak of the “provisional revolutionary
      government” is to stress the constitutional aspect of the case, the
      fact that the government originates, not from the law, but from the
      revolution, that it is a temporary government committed to the
      future Constituent Assembly. But whatever the form, whatever the
      origin, whatever
      the conditions, one thing at any rate is clear— that the provisional
      revolutionary government must have the support of definite classes. One
      has only to remember this simple truth to realise that the provisional
      revolutionary government can be nothing else but the
      revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the
      peasantry. Therefore,Iskra’sdistinction only drags the Party back to fruitless disputes, away from the
    task of making a concrete analysis of the class interests in the Russian
    revolution.

Or,to take anotherIskraargument. The slogan “Long Live the
Revolutionary Provisional Government!” draws from that paper the didactic
remark: “The combination of the words ’long live’ and ’government’ sullies
the lips.” What is this, if not sheer bombast? They talk about over throwing the
autocracy and yet fear to sully themselves by acclaiming the revolutionary
government! Surprisingly, they are not afraid of sullying themselves by
acclaiming a republic, for a republic necessarily implies a government,
and—no Social-Democrat ever doubted it—a bourgeois government at
that. In what way, then, does acclaiming the provisional revolutionary
government differ from acclaiming the democratic republic? Must
Social-Democracy, the political leader of the most revolutionary class, take
after an anaemic and hysterical old maid who finically insists on a fig-leaf?
Is it right to acclaim what the bourgeois-democratic government stands for, but
wrong directly to acclaim the provisional revolutionary-democratic government?

Pictureit: the uprising of the workers in St. Petersburg has been victorious;
the autocracy is overthrown; the provisional revolutionary government has been
proclaimed; the armed workers jubilate, with outcries of “Long Live the
Provisional Revolutionary Government!” The new-Iskrists stand on the side
lines, their innocent eyes raised heavenward, solemnly uttering as they beat
their chaste breasts:“We thank Thee, 0 Lord, that we are not like these wretches and have not
sullied our lips with such word combinations ...."

No,comrades, a thousand times no! Have no fear of sullying yourselves by most
energetic halting-at-nothing participation in a republican revolution together
with the revolutionary bourgeois democrats. Do not exaggerate the dangers of
such participation; our organised proletariat is quite capable of coping with
them. More will be accomplished in months of the revolutionary dictatorship of
the proletariat and the peasantry than in decades of the peaceful, stupefying
atmosphere of political stagnation. If, after the Ninth of January, the Russian
working class, under conditions of political slavery, was able to mobilise over
a million proletarians for staunch, disciplined, collective action, then, given
the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship, we will mobilise scores of millions
of the urban and rural poor, and we will make the Russian political revolution
the prelude to the socialist revolution in Europe.

[1]D. I. Ilovaisky (1832-1920)—a Russian historian, apologist of
monarchism.—Ed.

[2]The article“The Revolutionary-Democratic
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Peasantry”was published also
in pamphlet
 form by the Caucasian League Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. in
 Georgian, Russian, and Armenian.

[3]The reference is to the resolution on “International Rules of Socialist
Tactics” adopted at the Amsterdam Congress of the Second
 International in August 1904.

[4]By the termparliamentary cretinismLenin
characterised the opportunists’ view that the parliamentary system of
government was all-powerful and parliamentary struggle the sole and, under all
conditions, the principal form of political struggle.